Mayors from the Upper Pontiac municipalities and Pontiac MNA André Fortin met with representatives from Hydro-Québec Thursday on Allumette Island to discuss the issue of ongoing power outages in the area.
Mayors from Allumette Island, Chichester, Sheenboro, and Waltham met with a pair of Hydro-Québec media representatives, as well as an engineer and a line network supervisor.
The meeting was held to discuss causes and possible solutions to an ongoing number of power outages, the most recent of which occurred over two pairs of consecutive days in June.
Between June 17-18 and 23-24, municipalities of Waltham, Sheenboro and Chichester lost power six times, while Allumette Island lost power seven times, according to Hydro-Québec data sent in an email to THE EQUITY.
Hydro-Québec did not provide data for Mansfield and Pontefract, but parts of that municipality were also affected.
Representatives told the mayors the outages were caused by brush that had fallen on the power lines as a result of recent storms, THE EQUITY learned from Allumette Island mayor, Corey Spence who attended the closed-door meeting.
In an email to THE EQUITY, Marie-Lou St-Onge, Hydro-Québec’s media relations person for the Outaouais region, confirmed in French that a “significant number” of the outages in Upper Pontiac were due to brush on the lines, and that the area is “vulnerable to contact between power lines and vegetation.”
This is a familiar story, says Spence. He said they were hoping for some new answers about what caused these outages, but that Hydro-Québec’s representatives told the mayors the same thing they have been hearing for years.
“It was more or less lip service [ . . . ] they told us what we already knew.”
St-Onge explained in her email that one factor causing the outages was that the Upper Pontiac grid was getting its power from the Quebec network instead of the Ontario one, as is normally the case.
“This temporary configuration spread the network across larger distances and made it more vulnerable to weather events, particularly in wooded areas.”
When the Upper Pontiac is hooked up to the Quebec network, the region relies on power generation at the Waltham station, which Spence said does not supply enough power to feed all roughly 3,200 customers in the Upper Pontiac.
“We’re at the limit [ . . . ] They’re going to have to do something, either buy power from Ontario [ . . . ] or get it from substations,” he said.
Sheenboro mayor Doris Ranger said she’s not happy with Hydro-Québec’s response to the mayors.

She said residents of her municipality often lose power during times of extreme temperatures, an issue that goes back decades.
“When it’s really extreme heat or extreme cold, we seem to be out of hydro,” she said, adding that more people are taking it upon themselves to be prepared, knowing they will likely have to face a few outages each season.
“Every time there’s an outage, I’m sure there’s two or three more [people] who say, ‘we’re going to have to get a generator.’”
Ranger said she understands when there’s a storm that the densely populated urban centres are going to be prioritized when it comes to power restoration.
“We wait our turn. I think we’ve been very patient, but [. . .] we want some answers.”
Spence says these outages are not isolated incidents, noting this has been going on for years. Over that time, he has seen Hydro-Québec offer little in the way of solutions.
For its part, Hydro-Québec told THE EQUITY it is aware of the issue of power outages and is trying to fix it, in part by controlling vegetation on the lines.
“In 2023 Hydro-Québec strengthened its operations in controlling vegetation,” wrote St-Onge, adding that it has invested $130 million this year toward this goal.
“Quality of service is the number one priority in our 2035 action plan. We are aiming to reduce the number of power outages by 35 per cent in seven to 10 years, and reduce the number of outages related to vegetation from now to 2028.”
It is unclear how much of that money, or what portion of that work, will go toward improving outages in the Upper Pontiac.
Spence said response time is a big issue because there are few to no Hydro-Québec employees based in the Upper Pontiac. When an outage occurs, a truck must typically be dispatched from elsewhere, which often means a one-or two-hour wait before a truck is even on the scene.
“They have to come usually from Maniwaki or Gatineau,” he said.
Then, up to an additional four hours must be allotted for technicians to check the lines for possible causes of the outage.
Spence also sees room for improvement from Hydro-Québec in the communication department. He said it would be nice to know exactly how much time customers, especially businesses, can expect to be without power, so they can make backup plans.
“Oh, okay, Hydro-Québec says it’s going to take five hours for the power to come on, so I’m going to plan my workforce. What do I need to buy?” he said, putting himself in the shoes of a business owner dealing with a power outage.
Businesses are already being affected by this break in communication. Two weeks ago, THE EQUITY published a story about Paul Amyotte, a greenhouse owner in Mansfield who was hit by the outages.
He said if Hydro-Québec had let him know when he could expect to get the power restored, he would have been able to hook up his tomato plants to a backup water source. As it stood, his tomatoes lost several days’ worth of water because the hydroponic system that feeds them was left non-operational due to the outages.
At Thursday’s meeting, Upper Pontiac mayors noted their concerns to the Hydro-Québec representatives and urged them to return this fall with some solutions.
“They’re going to go back and speak with their supervisors and hopefully by the fall have some answers.”
The next meeting is scheduled for the end of September, where Hydro-Québec said it will update local officials on what has been done to reduce outages over the summer.